


All that we need, at the tips of our fingers

by jijal



Category: BTOB
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Comedy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 22:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jijal/pseuds/jijal
Summary: Things didn't go the way they were supposed to.





	All that we need, at the tips of our fingers

**Author's Note:**

> this is the stupidest thing i have ever written. that being said, a big thank you to the three (3) people who liked this and believed in me, (dramatic grammy winner voice, looking off into the distance) you know who you are; title from lost by shawn mendes

Eager hands leaving Minhyuk’s heated skin, Ilhoon reaches blindly into the top drawer of their nightstand, finding Minhyuk’s watch, his glasses and some coins by the sound of it. He shoves them aside a few times, over and over, searching but not finding what he’s looking for, and he draws back eventually, brows knitted in confusion and Minhyuk whining at the loss of contact as Ilhoon’s lips leave his to lean over and have a look into the drawer.

“Hyung.”

Minhyuk hums back low in his throat, his mouth already busy elsewhere, nipping on Ilhoon’s chest.

“Where are the condoms?”

Minhyuk pulls back at the question. “What?” He asks back, trying to find Ilhoon’s eyes, but Ilhoon is still leaning over to the side of the bed, head almost buried in the drawer at this point.

“Didn't you put them in here?” he mumbles, ignoring Minhyuk’s question, as he continues to rummage around, despite the fact that their bedside table doesn’t provide a lot of possible hiding spots. He moves on to check the bottom drawer, and Minhyuk follows Ilhoon’s eyes, grabbing him by the hips to make sure he doesn’t lose his balance, almost completely bent over the edge of the bed. Once again, Ilhoon is denied what he’s looking for, and as Minhyuk watches him crane his neck and reach underneath the bedside table, it hits him.

“Fuck," he breathes out, his eyes fluttering shut in annoyance as he finally remembers what it was he had promised Ilhoon he’d take care of on his way home from work, but what had slipped his mind hurrying from the bus stop to their apartment complex to not get soaked by the heavy downpour and catch a cold. He figured it couldn’t have been that important, anyway, considering he’d forgotten what it was, but the death glare Ilhoon shoots him when he’s sat back up in his lap within a second has Minhyuk regret not taking another minute to try and remember back then.

“Don't fucking tell me you didn't buy any.”

Minhyuk lowering his eyes to avoid Ilhoon’s crushing gaze must be answer enough, Ilhoon letting out an annoyed groan and hastily getting off of him and to his feet. Cussing under his breath, he begins to search the pockets of his jeans that he finds scattered on the floor, then Minhyuk's, and any other drawer in their bedroom that could possibly, even if unlikely, be hiding a condom. He slams the last one shut in frustration and Minhyuk hears him go off a second before he does.

“You _promised_ you'd take care of it. What the fuck happened?”

"I'm sorry, it slipped my mind on the way home,” Minhyuk says, desperate to soften the sour expression on Ilhoon’s face. "But can't we, this one time, do it, you know, without—“

“Are you fucking serious?” Ilhoon cuts him off, his hands balled to fists at this sides.

“Well, what do you want to do?” Minhyuk shoots back, not ready to back down without trying. “It’s  _pouring_  outside.”

“We’re not fucking doing it without a condom, so unless you have a better idea—“

“Ilhoon-ah,” Minhyuk whines, clinging onto the astronomically slim chance of Ilhoon changing his mind. "Does it really make that much of a difference? Neither of us has slept with anyone else since we started dating, we're  _clean_."

“I'm not having this discussion again. I’m not doing it without a condom, and if you try to talk me into it one more time, I swear to God—"

“Okay, fine,” Minhyuk says, lifting his hands in an attempt to appease Ilhoon before he gets worked up to the point of no return. He runs a hand through his hair, leaning back against the headboard and collects his thoughts, crams through his brain for an alternative to having to walk two blocks in the rain in the dark just to get to the nearest pharmacy, and one that Ilhoon will be okay with, too. Minhyuk knows how much he had been looking forward to this evening, work and other obligations keeping them apart on most days and leaving them without much energy to do anything but sleep and watch movies together on the weekends.

“What if we ask a neighbour?” Minhyuk suggests, more desperate to come up with something than confident in his idea.

"Hyung, we're roommates to everybody. We'd just be outing ourselves if we went around asking for a condom."

"What about the guy that moved in next door a few weeks ago? He's new, so he doesn’t know we live together. And he looked my age.”

Ilhoon crosses his arms in front of his chest, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes at Minhyuk; he holds his gaze, and a weight is lifted off his shoulders when Ilhoon eventually gives up with a click of his tongue and an exasperated roll of his eyes, muttering an almost inaudible  _fine_  under his breath.

“Be quick,” he adds, louder, having Minhyuk sit up straight and ready to protest.

”What, did you think I’d go ask? This is your fault.”

“But you’re the one insisting—“

“Either you go out for two minutes and get a condom, or you can get yourself off tonight,” Ilhoon snarls, ending the discussion and Minhyuk lets out a defeated groan, shuffling to the end of the bed, where he fishes for his T-shirt on the floor. There's more at stake than sex, Ilhoon’s mood for the next few days depends on how Minhyuk decides to handle the situation, and if there’s one thing he’s learned by now, it’s not to start a proper fight with an already grumpy Ilhoon. Besides, there's no way of actually winning here, all Minhyuk is sent to do is damage control and pray it’s enough to avoid receiving the cold shoulder he probably deserves.

“What do I even say?” he asks, already dying of embarrassment, the prospect of having the most uncomfortable conversation of his life making it hard to suppress the urge to drop the T-shirt back on the floor and convince Ilhoon to find another way to deal with this.

“Tell him you have your girlfriend over and he’ll get the hint,” Ilhoon says, not greatly concerned about the possibility of Minhyuk making an absolute fool of himself, while watching with growing irritation as he goes straight for his sweatpants next.

“And put your underwear on, for God’s sake,” he adds, picking up Minhyuk's briefs and tossing them into his face. Minhyuk shies back, shoots Ilhoon an unhappy glare but complies, relieved to see the corners of his lips twitch upwards the tiniest bit, at last.

Ushered out of the apartment as soon as he's fully dressed, and Ilhoon's words still ringing in his head, Minhyuk finds himself in front of their new neighbour's door before he even realises. He takes a deep breath and gives a light, hesitant knock, but his mind goes into panic mode a second later, already considering his chances to run back into their flat before their neighbour gets to see him. Much to his dismay, the door gets opened way quicker than anticipated, as if the person on the other side had been lurking by the entrance the entire time. He’s about Minhyuk's height, and has that overly excited expression on his face, as if seeing Minhyuk was the best thing that could have possibly happened to him. Minhyuk can barely force the friendly smile onto his lips in return, and notices with confusion that the inviting smile on his neighbour’s face doesn’t disappear even when he’s had more than enough time to process that it’s a complete stranger standing in front of him.

"Hello," he says, giving a quick, friendly bow, all the while beaming at Minhyuk.

"Uhm, hello," Minhyuk starts, a little caught off guard, to say the least, "I live next door and I—"

"Oh, yes! Right! Hello, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I was planning on coming over and introducing myself as soon as I had the time, but then I got kind of busy with work and had loads of things to unpack, so I never got the chance to, and then it completely slipped my mind. I’m really sorry. I’m Seo Eunkwang, by the way.”

"I—I'm Lee Minhyuk,” Minhyuk stammers back, Eunkwang having run out of breath and being forced to end his monologue.

“I didn’t mean to bother you this late in the evening, I was actually just wondering if, uhm…,” Minhyuk trails off, the words only reluctantly tumbling past his lips. He averts his gaze in embarrassment, his ears getting hot, and his eyes fall on an old couch and a small coffee table with two empty plates on it in the living room behind Eunkwang. Minhyuk’s face drops, having Eunkwang turn around to find out what it was he must have seen.

“Oh, do you want to come in, maybe?” he asks, turning back around, “I was about to eat dinner, I know it’s late, and they always say you shouldn’t eat past six, but one of my friends cancelled last minute, and I got way too much chicken on the way home. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste, right?"

"—God, I'm sorry,” Eunkwang adds before Minhyuk can muster a response. “I'm too much. Sorry. It was a silly idea. I thought I should try make some friends here, but please don’t feel obligated to eat with me.”

He gives a small, flustered chuckle, and while Minhyuk is taken aback by the invitation and the possible change of plans for the evening, he decides that Eunkwang seems like someone too nice of a person to be eating dinner alone in his new apartment on a Friday night, and that he’s opened up way too much for Minhyuk to be able to leave again and spend the night with Ilhoon without feeling like a complete asshole.

“It's alright. I'll have some of that take-out, if you don't mind,” he says after a moment of internal struggle and contemplation, ignoring his still fairly prominent hard-on and shoving the thought of having to deal with Ilhoon, who will be furious once Minhyuk comes back from dinner with the new neighbour that was merely supposed to give him a condom and wish him a nice night, aside; Eunkwang's expression brightening is worth risking a cold shoulder for the next week or two, and, who knows, Minhyuk might need a place to crash, anyway, depending on how pissed off Ilhoon is going to be once he realises that Minhyuk won’t be coming back any time soon.

"Sure! Please, come on in!”

He lets Minhyuk in, guides him to the coffee table and asks him to take a seat on the sofa while he leaves to get the food. He comes back balancing a big box of chicken, two bottles of beer and a pile of napkins from the kitchen, loads both their plates with way too much once he’s managed to set it all down and finally sits down next to Minhyuk.

As soon as Minhyuk rises to speak, an unknown voice coming from where he suspects the kitchen startles him and has him go silent as he looks up and sees a guy disappearing out of his line of sight as fast as he'd entered it, continuously rambling on about how Eunkwang should finally invest in some nice soap instead of always going for the cheapest option from the convenience store, the one that makes your hands dry and smells like artificial oranges.

After a few moments, he reappears, and Minhyuk is frozen on the spot, like a deer caught in headlights when the stranger’s eyes fall on him for the first time.

“Oh,” he makes, stopping dead in his tracks as he takes a few seconds to scan Minhyuk with an unreadable glance, before directing his attention onto Eunkwang. "Care to explain?"

"I—I'm sorry, I was under the impression you were home alone—," Minhyuk sputters, turning around to see Eunkwang wave him off.

"No, don't worry. This is my friend Changsub. Changsub, my new neighbour Minhyuk. He came over to eat dinner with us!”

But Changsub doesn’t seem in the mood, or like the kind of person, to share Eunkwang’s borderline obnoxious enthusiasm about a stranger joining them for the evening.

“You couldn’t stand the two minutes alone that I was on the toilet?”

It’s probably not his intention, or perhaps it is, Minhyuk wouldn’t put it past him, but the lack of welcoming words and an overly friendly bow makes him feel out of place and desperate to not be the centre of attention for once. He catches Eunkwang’s scolding, disapproving look at Changsub, and they move to the kitchen to continue — or, rather, start — dinner at the significantly bigger table.

After the first few minutes, Minhyuk knows two things: Changsub doesn't talk a lot. And Eunkwang does. He was quick to clear up the misunderstanding as soon as he’d noticed Minhyuk’s confusion at the whole scene, and explained that they were supposed to eat dinner with a mutual friend, who, as Minhyuk had already been told, had to cancel last minute, and who, as Minhyuk learned, is not Changsub — he had merely decided to go to the toilet a few seconds before Minhyuk had knocked on the door. And while Eunkwang is undoubtedly the nicest, most welcoming neighbour Minhyuk has ever had, the realisation dawns on him that he had no reason to feel sorry and morally obliged to eat dinner with him, because Eunkwang isn’t as lonely and new in town as he had seemed at first.

Minhyuk is left to swallow his exasperation and begrudgingly accept that Ilhoon won’t do him any favours in the near future for bailing on him like this, while following Eunkwang’s stories, which is hard, because Eunkwang not only talks a lot, but at a fast pace at that, and sometimes he forgets to explain things Changsub knows about, but Minhyuk doesn’t and Minhyuk desperately tries to piece it all together while giving appropriate reactions at the same time.

His stomach drops at the sound of a knock on the door, the surprised expression on his face matching Eunkwang’s, albeit for a different reason.

“Oh my,” Eunkwang mumbles, hastily putting down his chopsticks and moving to get up, “who could that be, there’s no way Hyunsik came here all sick just to eat, is there?”

It’s not really directed at Minhyuk, Eunkwang’s confused mumbling, more so at Changsub, who gives a shrug of his shoulders in response and who also doesn't seem all that interested, considering he doesn't even bother looking up from his plate and take a peek as Eunkwang disappears around the corner to open the door. Minhyuk's heart is close to beating in his throat and he suppresses the cuss threatening to escape his lips when he recognises Ilhoon’s voice.

Eunkwang returns to the kitchen a few moments later, closely followed by Ilhoon, who, as Minhyuk notes with relief, looks more put together than he did when he came over; he's put on jeans and a lose shirt and he’s fixed his hair, but his lips are still slightly swollen and that cute shade of dark pink and the layer of concealer he put on his neck to cover the hickeys Minhyuk left isn't hiding shit.

He says a quick hello to Changsub, whose interest in the new guest has every other emotion he’s shown so far pale in comparison, almost as if he was only waking up from his sleepy state of disinterest now that Ilhoon is here.

"Wow, look who showed up,” Minhyuk says, playfully, desperate to mask his helplessness the second Ilhoon’s eyes meet his.

“Well, I didn't know you'd stay for dinner and never come back,” Ilhoon shoots back, obviously not letting Minhyuk’s fuck-up from earlier go. He sits down next to him, and Minhyuk squeezes Ilhoon’s hand in response under the table, Eunkwang and Changsub giving him no chance to even begin to explain how exactly he ended up in this situation or to say sorry, at the very least. Ilhoon pulls his hand away as quickly as Minhyuk had grabbed it though, his pokerface not giving away whether he’s still genuinely angry or just cautious.

“So, you’re roommates?” Eunkwang asks once Ilhoon has a full plate in front of him as well and has ensured Eunkwang three times that he isn’t thirsty and doesn’t need anything to drink and that yes, he’ll let him know in case he changes his mind later on.

“We, uh, live together, yes,” Minhyuk mumbles, words accompanied by an awkward nod, earning himself a side-glance from Changsub at the dodge.

“That’s so nice, sharing an apartment with your friend, having someone to spend the evening with. You two must be close."

A snort erupts from Ilhoon's throat, bits of his food flying from his mouth, and Minhyuk jumps, his eyes going wide. Eunkwang just shoots Ilhoon a surprised, yet not the tiniest bit less friendly look, like he wants to get the joke he must have made.

“Yeah, we, uh—“ Minhyuk jumps in, flustered but desperate to save the conversation.

“We're very close, yes," Ilhoon echoes, cutting Minhyuk off mid-stutter, balancing on the thin line between joking about the implication of Eunkwang's statement and trying not to be too obvious about it.

“There's no way you fit two beds in there, though,” Changsub chimes in, seemingly unfazed by the mess unfolding in front of him. “These apartments are tiny.”

“Two… two beds,” Minhyuk mumbles, only catching on when Ilhoon steps on his foot under the table, forcing his brain into activity. “Oh. Yeah. Uhm, no. I. I sleep on the couch.”

“You sleep on the  _couch_?” Changsub asks, his eyebrows furrowed in disbelief, leaning forward a little, as if he didn’t believe what he’d just heard. Minhyuk averts his eyes, heat steadily climbing up his neck, and the increasing pressure of Ilhoon’s foot on top of his not making matters any easier to deal with.

“Y—Yeah. Neither of us could afford the place alone, so. We had to come up with something,” he looks up again, shooting Changsub a weak smile, but any hope of him backing off is immediately shattered by the unbelieving look still plastered all over his face, making it abundantly clear that he isn't buying any of the shit they're spewing.

“And how did you two get to know each other?” Eunkwang pipes up again, giving Minhyuk an excuse to avoid Changsub’s eyes and try to pretend he isn’t there for a few minutes, to give himself a chance to calm down and collect his thoughts again.

"We met in a bar,” Ilhoon butts in. “Through mutual friends. A few years ago."

Minhyuk lets out a shallow breath and relaxes a little, grateful for Ilhoon finally deciding to help, but he catches the confused expression flickering across Changsub’s face as he redirects his attention to his food, seemingly done with his merciless interrogation for now, despite how ridiculously vague Ilhoon’s answer was. (Minhyuk and Ilhoon met in a gay bar in Itaewon, ended up making out in a dirty bathroom stall, Ilhoon completely wasted, and Sungjae, once he had come to collect Ilhoon and get going, had to drag him to a taxi together with Minhyuk to let him sleep it off, where Ilhoon ended up throwing up all over Minhyuk before they had made it to their apartment.) (Not only was the driver furious, Sungjae also felt so bad about the whole situation he invited Minhyuk to breakfast in the morning and insisted he should shower and sleep at theirs for the night after he found out his apartment was another half hour ride away and he didn't have any more cash on him. And he’d also need help fixing up Ilhoon.)

To Minhyuk’s relief, Ilhoon steers the conversation onto Eunkwang before he can ask any further questions neither Minhyuk nor Ilhoon would have the strength to come up with answers to, and Eunkwang, being Eunkwang, is more than willing to talk about where he lived before his move, the reason for leaving his old place and how he’s been settling in so far, and another ten things Ilhoon didn’t ask about but that Eunkwang finds a way to bring up, anyway. Changsub stays quiet for the rest of dinner, only throwing in short comments and nodding along to Eunkwang’s stories, that he’s probably had to listen to more than once, if the bored expression and lack of genuine reactions was anything to go by.

It’s almost an hour later when Minhyuk and Ilhoon come back to their apartment, having brought up the time and explained that they’ve both had a _rather long day_ to Eunkwang; they assured him that they had had a nice evening and that they’d find the time to swing by again soon, before finally, _finally_ giving their final bows and retreating back to the privacy and safety of their own apartment.

Ilhoon plumps down onto their bed and Minhyuk follows suit, lying down next to him. His arm snaking around Ilhoon’s waist, he pulls him close and lets out an exhausted sigh.

"I hate you," Ilhoon says, breaking the silence, the smile creeping up his lips audible in his voice. "You're the worst _friend_ I could have ever wished for."

A chuckle erupts from Minhyuk’s throat and he presses a quick kiss to Ilhoon's cheek as a late, silent sorry.

"How about I make it up to you?" he murmurs into the skin just below Ilhoon's ear, hand already slipping underneath the thin fabric of his shirt. "Just between friends."

Ilhoon scoffs. "You can try." 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this was enjoyable; there is a second part to this kind of not really in the works, but even if i ever finish it it wont be anytime soon so dont wait for it. please


End file.
